LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences

LinkedIn has rolled out Matched Audiences which is a set of targeting capabilities including retargeting, account targeting and contact targeting.

Sam OvendenPosted on 2nd May 2017

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LinkedIn

Since Microsoft acquired LinkedIn last June there have been notable changes to the platform, both in the customer facing interface and the ‘back-end’ for advertisers.

LinkedIn has long held immense potential for advertisers as it is the only distinct platform for business professionals to operate, sharing content and networking as they go. This environment allows for a relaxed but business orientated audience who are looking out for new trends, opportunities, and resources to help them advance their knowledge and understanding.

Thought Leadership

Cue B-2-B marketers. As users soak up this content, businesses have found a unique space to become ‘thought leaders’ and cement (or create) their positioning as the industry experts. By providing free content – be it blogs, white papers, infographics, etc. – businesses can reach their target audience by first demonstrating their knowledge and understanding, then through this positioning becoming the company that these users reach out to in order to solve their problem or use their product/service.

However, LinkedIn have traditionally offered limited options to marketers, with restricted targeting and ad formats – unless you spend the big bucks.

But, thankfully, this is all changing.

Matched Audiences

This week LinkedIn have released their ‘Matched Audiences, a set of targeting capabilities that gives you the unique ability to combine LinkedIn’s powerful professional data with your own first-party data’ (LinkedIn).

There are three new targeting methods;

Website Retargeting, Account Targeting and Contact Targeting. These are available for all LinkedIn advertising products, including LinkedIn Sponsored Content, LinkedIn Sponsored InMail, and other ad formats.

Website Retargeting

This has long been missing from LinkedIn’s advertising arsenal, and is something that all the other big platforms offer as standard – but better late than never. Through LinkedIn’s Insight Tag you can now collect and define target audiences based on the pages they have visited on your site. This enables advertisers to deliver ads tailored to this audience based on the pages they have been on, and guide prospects along their buying journey. Alternatively, if you want to target completely new users who haven’t been on your site before, you can add them to your exclusion list.

Account Targeting

This has always been possible through LinkedIn, but was previously only available to advertisers spending above a certain monthly threshold. Now, advertisers can upload a list of companies (minimum of 300 ) and specifically target users who work for these businesses. This is great for businesses who have lists of potential companies they would specifically like to work with.

Contact Targeting

LinkedIn’s Contact Targeting allows for advertisers to upload a list of email addresses (minimum of 300) or connect to their contact management platforms, and target specific users. This creates a much tighter targeting option, which minimizes waste, and opens the door to far more sophisticated approaches than have previously been possible on LinkedIn, enabling strategies which include or exclude certain users.

Results

Before launching Matched Audiences to the public, LinkedIn ran an extensive pilot program to test each targeting method.

‘Over the past six months, LinkedIn has run a successful pilot program for Matched Audiences with over 370 participating advertisers and 2,000+ active campaigns delivering above-average performance compared to product benchmarks. On average customers using Matched Audiences saw:

– 30% increase in CTR and a 14% drop in post-click cost-per-conversion with Website Retargeting,

This new addition to the Marketing Solutions family helps you to reach your target audiences throughout the entire customer lifecycle — from awareness to lead generation to customer retention and win-back.’ (LinkedIn)

Find Out More

You can read more on LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences here: https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/ad-targeting/matched-audiences

And if you’re interested to learn how LinkedIn’s new targeting could help your grow business, why not get in touch with one of our experts at 020 3813 7545 or via email.